Ten years after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it has never produced a comprehensive strategy to gain operational control of our borders, and it still does not have measures to determine if security is improving. The Administration’s current ad hoc border approach, which includes more than a dozen strategies and 22 independent units directing border security operations, has resulted in government waste and the continuation of illegal migration. Sending large amounts of resources to certain border sectors has simply pushed illegal border crossers to other areas. This legislation ensures that DHS finally develops a comprehensive national strategy and verified metrics, so that Americans see lasting results on our borders.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas): “Not knowing who is coming across our borders threatens our economic and national security. Americans have seen that promises of border security coupled with immigration reform have gone unfulfilled in the past. The Border Security Results Act of 2013 ensures that border security will be realized. This legislation compels the use of taxpayer-owned technology to gain situational awareness of our borders so that we can finally see what we’re missing, and doing so will allow us to develop measures to gauge progress. For too long, we have approached border security backwards – by throwing resources at the problem, to plug the holes on our borders without a comprehensive plan to tactically distribute those resources. Until Congress mandates the creation of a national strategy, the Administration will continue to say the border is secure while America's back door remains wide open.”

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas): “Since 2010, the Administration has failed to provide a metric for determining border security, yet they continue to claim that the border is secure. By requiring the Administration to come up with a clear measurement of security, as well as a timeline for development and implementation, we can ensure that our national security policy is based on real results, and not baseless claims.

“We’re committed to learning from past failures, and are setting standards for significantly lowering wait times at ports of entry on the border and significantly higher rates of apprehension for those who enter the country illegally.”

Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.):“The American people expect and deserve to have a high degree of certainty that our nation’s borders are secure. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, I want to ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes made in the past, nor can we accept empty promises on border security – we need hard, verifiable facts. We need a strategy to get us to a place where we can be confident that the overwhelming majority of illegal crossers are apprehended, as well as drugs and other contraband interdicted. Absent a national strategy and a way to measure our border security efforts, we will have the same immigration conversation year after year.”

Incorporates advanced technology to get a complete picture of the security of the entire border for full situational awareness

Employs this data to properly allocate manpower and other resources

Creates new metrics to define progress based off the number of apprehensions relative to the total number of illegal crossings

To ensure Congressional oversight, the legislation also requires DHS to meet a timeline for the development and implementation of the strategy, the results of which must be verified by outside experts. Specifically, DHS must:

Develop a strategy to secure the border within 120 days of bill passage

Implement its strategy 60 days after development, with the implementation plan to be reviewed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO)

Gain situational awareness within 2 years of bill passage

Gain operational control of the border within 2 years of implementation of its strategy

Submit to an independent audit by a DHS National Lab and the GAO to verify the validity of their proposed metrics.

The full text of the Border Security Results Act of 2013 can be found here.